The Briefing:
- In her first address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori urged that criminal gangs be treated as terrorist groups; no published account of the speech records any mention of the killing of Susy Aponte.
- Aponte, a journalist and gubernatorial candidate in Áncash known as "China Polo," was shot dead in Caraz on Sept. 19, nine days after accusing police Gen. Víctor Revoredo on video of ordering an attack on her.
- Revoredo was moved out of the national criminal investigations unit by a decree published the day after the murder, citing only "service needs." No authority has linked him to the killing.
Three days after a journalist running for regional office was gunned down in Peru's Áncash highlands, President Keiko Fujimori stood before the United Nations General Assembly in New York and pledged a hard line on organized crime. According to the Latin Times' report on her speech, Fujimori vowed to pursue criminals "from the man who pulls the trigger to the network that sustains him" (translated from Spanish).
The victim, Susy Aponte Polo, whose followers called her "China Polo," had publicly accused Gen. Víctor Revoredo Farfán, then head of the Peruvian police's criminal investigations directorate (Dirincri), of plotting to have her attacked. One day after the killing, Peru's official gazette, El Peruano, carried the decree that removed him from that post.
A U.N. Debut Built Around a "War" on Organized Crime
Fujimori spoke on Tuesday, Sept. 22, during the opening day of debate at the Assembly's 81st session. It was her first appearance at that podium, 57 days after she took office on July 28.
She framed transnational crime as her administration's defining challenge and proposed classifying criminal organizations as terrorist groups, backed by a legal framework that would let the armed forces support the national police. She also highlighted Peru's entry into the Shield of the Americas security alliance and devoted part of the speech to education reform, according to Gestión.
Fujimori further defended soldiers and police officers who still face prosecution in Peru over their role in the counterinsurgency era, and asked the U.N. not to override each nation's sovereign decisions.
Silence on the Aponte Case
None of the accounts of the speech published by Peruvian or international media records a direct reference to Aponte's murder. Two days earlier, at an Armed Forces Day ceremony, Fujimori declared that Peru would have "no territory living in fear". That same Sunday, the president had yet to comment on the killing.
The Warning "China Polo" Issued Nine Days Earlier
On Sept. 10, Aponte posted a video on her Facebook page saying she had received phone calls from three different prisons warning that Revoredo had ordered an attack against her, RPP reported. In the recording, she described being harassed and said she had already filed formal complaints.
In her messages from those days, she also confronted the head of state directly. According to a report by El Popular, in a message released six days before she was killed, Aponte demanded that Fujimori act to protect her life and complained that officials enjoyed security while journalists were left exposed.
So far, no authority has tied the general to the murder or confirmed that the calls she described were part of the plot. Revoredo has not publicly responded either: in its Sept. 20 edition, La República said neither he nor the national police had commented.
Who Was Susy Aponte?
Aponte was 44, according to an Associated Press report and ran the online outlet "China Polo Dominical," where she aired allegations of police misconduct and graft. She was seeking the Áncash governorship with the Socios por Áncash movement in the Oct. 4 regional and municipal elections. Hours before the shooting, she had promised new revelations about regional candidates from the Alianza para el Progreso party, RPP reported. La República noted that her filing with Peru's National Elections Jury listed two final convictions with suspended sentences, from 2010 and 2013, both already served.
The Attack in Caraz
The shooting took place at about 12:40 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19, on Ramón Castilla Avenue beside the Caraz market in Huaylas province, as the candidate handed out campaign flyers with supporters. The gunman shot her from behind and also struck bystanders.
Prosecutors first opened the case as a femicide but later reframed it as a suspected contract killing, a change that requires them to trace not only the shooter but also anyone who planned, paid for or ordered the attack, Latin Times explained. A Huaylas judge ordered 15 days of pretrial custody for Luis Iván Obispo Díaz, a Venezuelan national identified as the alleged gunman, and for Ronald José Toro Ardila.
Attorney General Tomás Gálvez said three people had been arrested: the suspected shooter, a possible financier and someone believed to have driven the attacker, though he cautioned that the financier's role was still only a theory, La República reported. Accounts of Toro Ardila's role conflict: One report described him as the man who transported the gunman, while another report identifies him as the financier who sent 80 soles through a payment app to buy the phone used in the operation.
The police report adds a troubling detail: the 9 mm Glock recovered from the suspected shooter belonged to a Peruvian police officer who had reported it stolen from his home in Villa El Salvador, Lima, in November 2023.
The Decree That Moved Revoredo
Supreme Resolution No. 234-2026-IN, published in El Peruano on Sunday, Sept. 20, reshuffled 23 senior officers, 20 generals and three lieutenant generals, on grounds of "service needs". Revoredo was sent to the police's international affairs directorate, and Dirincri passed to Gen. Ricardo Espinoza Cuestas, previously the top police commander in La Libertad. El Comercio stressed that the move does not force him out of the force.
The decree, proposed by the police high command, carries the signatures of Fujimori and Interior Minister César Astudillo, and its only stated rationale is operational need, state broadcaster TV Perú reported. The text neither mentions Aponte nor presents the transfer as a disciplinary measure.
The shake-up had a backstory. The new police commander, Gen. Fredy López, had said he would review the performance of unit chiefs, and Revoredo, who had led Dirincri since Jan. 1, was already under fire over his handling of an Aug. 30 attack in Trujillo that left four people dead and a mining businessman kidnapped, according to the same La República report on his exit.
Pressure at Home and Abroad
The Technical Mission of the U.N. human rights office in Peru condemned the killing and called for a "prompt, thorough, independent and transparent" investigation (translated), reminding the state of its duty to keep both journalism and the electoral process safe. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression urged investigators not to rule out her reporting as a motive, La República reported.
On the political front, Jorge Nieto's Partido del Buen Gobierno demanded public explanations from Minister Astudillo and argued that the lack of official answers was deepening public fear. The Juntos por el Perú party is pushing a censure motion against the minister in the Chamber of Deputies.
Áncash Regional Governor Koki Noriega asked the president to place the region under a state of emergency and to convene regional governors to agree on a security plan, adding that the request predated the murder and that several ministers had not met with him, he told RPP. Journalist Rosa María Palacios wrote on X that Aponte was the fifth member of the press killed in Peru in two years, Crónica Viva noted.
Why It Matters to the Peruvian Diaspora
Fujimori delivered her message in New York, whose metropolitan area is home to one of the largest Peruvian communities in the United States, just 12 days before regional and municipal elections overshadowed by violence. For those families, the "China Polo" case will test the core promise Fujimori made to the world: that her crackdown reaches the people who bankroll and order killings, not only those who fire the shots.
